Thread by @QuestionPDX

IMPORTANT #GenderCritical LEGAL DEVELOPMENT: (Thread) 1/ Texas federal court just threw down the gauntlet in the gender litigation wars....

reuters.com/legal/us-judge…

2/ This new decision rightly accuses the Supreme Court of unconstitutionally legislating from the bench (only US Congress can make new laws; court's can't) in its 2020 Bostock decision, which used verbal obfuscation and tortured logic....

3/ ...to claim that, fifty years ago, when Congress passed Title IX against sex discrimination in education, it also meant to include gender self-identification.

Of course, it didn't. And the Supreme Court knows it. (Read the dissenting opinions in Bostock; they're scathing.) ..

4/...But until the Supreme Court is forced to revisit its own bad decision, Bostock is being used--fraudulently--by the Biden Administration to claim that gender self-identity is a protected class for the purposes of civil-rights law...

5/ ...and threatening to sue the pants off anyone who doesn't use arcane neo-pronouns and pay for gender surgery on demand to any age patient.

When Bostock befell us, many thought it would be decades before anything pushed the issue back to the Supremes for reconsideration...

6/ But Texas federal judges are taking the initiative, and making that push now.

This is where it gets interesting: please indulge me a little history. Few #GenderCritical people realize that Texas federal courts have long been the ideological battleground on gender...

7/ Going back to the Obama administration, which used executive fiat to treat gender self-identity as a de facto protected class even though it isn't one legally.

Obama's federal agencies (particularly the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services) began sending...

8/ ...educators and health insurers threatening "Dear Colleague" letters, saying that they'd better honor even the most absurd gender self-identities and pay for the most gruesome elective gender interventions or else be sued and fined as though they'd broken the law...

9/When executive agencies grant themselves the power to "enforce" a law that doesn't exist, that's called executive fiat. And it's been the state of gender law for nigh on a decade now.

But some refused to play. A Catholic health service provider called Franciscan Alliance and..

10/ ...a number of state Attorneys General challenged these executive mandates in federal court. And, through the complexities of multi-state litigation, the cases ended up consolidated in the Eastern District of Texas...

11/ ...where a Texas federal judge declared the Obama Administration's executive orders unconstitutional and barred the federal government from sending any more such threatening letters...

12/ The Obama Administration never got the chance to challenge the Texas ruling, because Donald Trump was elected President and immediately reined in the executive agencies to the extent he was able (long story, you may recall mention of a Swamp)...

13/...But once Joe Biden and his cabinet of delusional cross-dressing men were back to threatening to sue the asses off everyone: justice.gov/opa/video/back…

14/ And yet, the Franciscan Alliance decision was never challenged or overturned. As far as this reader knows, its injunction against these kinds of threats still stands.

Which brings us to this week's new Texas federal ruling...

15/ Here, a different Texas judge has reiterated some of the points made by the original Texas judge, but taking aim specifically at Bostock, reminding us that unless and until Congress decides to make a law *actually* equating gender self-identity with sex in the...

16/ ...context of civil-rights protected classification, it isn't. Even if the Supreme Court oversteps its bounds and attempts to make a new law:

"Title IX's ordinary public meaning remains intact until changed by Congress, or perhaps the Supreme Court."

17/

Ouch.

That's no dry legalese. That's Texas federal court calling the Bostock decision for what it was, and no doubt setting this new case up to take gender self-identity back in front of the Supreme Court, forcing SCOTUS to...

18/ ...do more contortions to fit its try-to-please-everyone-and-end-up-pleasing-no-one Bostock strategy to an increasing array of non-applicable federal sex-based laws, or admit it was wrong.

Let's hope for the latter. Thank you, Texas.

*fin*

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